This 30 week programme has been designed to teach NMC Adult Nurses and Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) registered healthcare professionals to perform safe diagnostic procedures in either upper gastrointestinal (GI) endoscopy or flexible sigmoidoscopy.

HEE is also providing a training support package of £15,000 per NHS trainee for the September and December 2018 cohorts. This package can be used to support creating sufficient capacity to release trainees from their duties or to provide training capacity when completing the 200 practical procedures within the trust.

Two pilot trainee cohorts completed the training in 2016 and following a positive initial evaluation report by the Office for Public Management (OPM), the programme is being rolled out more widely. Successful trainees from the programme have advanced their careers while helping to meet endoscopy service demands in their trust and freeing up medical colleagues to concentrate on more complicated cases.

To date, some 128 trainees are now either in training or have completed training.

Feedback shows trainees are helping to meet clinical demand, reduce waiting lists and contributing to a better patient experience. The full follow-up evaluation will be published in the spring and will be available on this page.

“I think actually what it’s done has put better practices in place, before it was very ad hoc, the trust has focused on training massively and the planning worked has benefited us and the registrars.”

Developing your career

Trainees who have completed the programme have found it a rewarding way to develop their skills and advance their career in a practical patient focused role. They are taking on new roles such as clinical research, leading clinics and designing pre-assessment services alongside utilising their new scoping skills to have a positive direct impact on quality of care for patients.

To enable trainees to train within the timeframe, employing organisations are expected to provide local support, including clinical supervision, good access to clinical lists to enable trainees to complete the necessary 200 clinical procedures, and sufficient release from other responsibilities to support trainees to focus on the programme requirements.

Note: If your role if not listed you may still be eligible to apply, please get in touch. The programme is not open to medically qualified applicants.

Key dates

To start your training in 2018 it is worth noting the following dates;

To be accepted onto the trainee cohort 8

Applications should be submitted by 10 August 2018 to start in September

To be accepted onto the trainee cohort 9

Applications should be submitted by 22 October 2018 to start in December

Clinical supervisors are required to attend induction days with successful trainees.

What do I need to do next?

Take a look at our supporting documents and if you are interested in applying for the training programme or putting forward a candidate from your trust, please complete and send the application form to NME@rcplondon.ac.uk. All shortlisted applicants will be invited for interview.